There are just 19 days remaining until pitchers and catchers report to spring training and 63 days until Opening Day.
On this date in Giants history…
1927: National League President John Heydler rules that Rogers Hornsby cannot continue to both hold stock in the St. Louis Cardinals and play for the New York Giants. Seemingly oblivious, the Cards’ board of directors, meeting in St. Louis, votes stockholders a 10% dividend, earning Hornsby $2916 for his 1,167 shares.
1962: San Francisco Giants star Willie Mays signs the largest contract in major league baseball, reportedly $90,000 for the upcoming season. Mays will earn every penny in 1962, when he bats .304 with 49 home runs and 141 RBI and helps the Giants to the National League pennant.
1965: Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese player in the major leagues, says he will not return to the San Francisco Giants this season, instead returning to the Nankai Hawks. This ends a long dispute over the rights to Murakami (pictured) and no Nippon Pro Baseball player will try to come to the U.S. for almost 30 years due to the legal and cultural barriers on both sides.
1977: Amos Rusie is elected to the Hall of Fame by the Special Veterans Committee. Rusie won 246 games over nine seasons from 1889 to 1898. He pitched for the Giants from 1890-’98.
1992: The Pittsburgh Pirates sign outfielder Barry Bonds to a one-year contract worth $4.7 million, the largest-ever one-year deal.
2001: A story in The Wall Street Journal quotes players Monte Irvin, Sal Yvars and Al Gettel, three former members of the 1951 Giants, as admitting that they stole catchers’ signs at the Polo Grounds to help the club overtake the 13.5-game lead of the Brooklyn Dodgers and win the National League pennant. Except for Yvars, all the participants will deny using the system during the three-game playoff with the Dodgers. According to the WSJ report, Bobby Thomson, whose three-run, ninth-inning home run in Game Three of the playoff won the pennant for the Giants, did not, however, steal a sign before hitting his historic home run.
(Entries courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com)
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